Too Big To Ignore

The case of eight-year-old, English-speaking Naama Margolese, whom some ultra-Orthodox men spat at and called a whore for allegedly not dressing modestly enough on her way to school in the town of Beit Shemesh, has galvanized Israeli society and stirred a long-necessary discussion about gender equality and the increasing power of Israel’s growing Haredi minority. Daniella Cheslow reports from Beit Shemesh today in Tablet Magazine, noting that the fight is over not only modesty but also municipal funding (the ultra-Orthodox had wanted the building that Margolese’s brand-new school occupies for their own purposes). And she quotes one Orthodox rabbi: “We don’t want to live here like in Tehran.”

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“Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion.” Steven Weinberg

Bill Pearlmansays:

January 9, 2012 - 3:41 pm

Judaism isn’t the problem. Psychotic assholes who obviously have some sort of repressed sexual pedophile thing going on is the problem.

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